Author's notes:

1) cognitivemiscellanea posted this amazing fanart of Chapter 19 that made me squee for at least a day and a half every time I thought about it: post/41975675366/go-read-the-secret-go-read-it-rig ht-now-then

2) Massive thank-you to Xenopheles, for the beta and for listening to me witter and for telling me I needed to rewrite this chapter, which I did.

There wasn't far to run; Bofur had nowhere to go. The initial rush to get away took him out the front door before he calmed enough to realize that he couldn't just run all the way to the Lonely Mountain.

Trapped again, like I was before the quest, he thought, and sat on a stump overlooking Bilbo's garden. At least the Shire was prettier than Ered Luin. His pipe was inside, but he wasn't going back for it.

He watched Hobbiton wake up and prepare for a new day. It was a ridiculously idyllic sight, and Bofur was a little bitter for it. Bilbo came out with a pot of tea and pressed the back of Bofur's hand to offer comfort, but Bofur couldn't bring himself to respond. The Halfling offered his pipe, and Bofur felt almost like weeping. He had to get a hold of himself.

He took the pipe. Bilbo fussed with the tea things for a moment, then went inside.

When he was collected enough to follow, Bofur found Bilbo and Dwalin glaring at each other over their breakfasts. Dwalin was looking guilty, and the emotion clearly angered him. In spite of his own anger, Bofur unexpectedly felt a stab of that familiar fondness; Dwalin hated anything he couldn't fight head-on.

Bofur was something he couldn't fight head-on. Dwalin would come to hate that, soon enough.

Frodo looked up at him from his perch on a child-chair. Far from the happy child of yesterday, he seemed to have picked up on the tension in the air. His lower lip quivered tremulously.

Bofur reached for the workbag he usually kept at his belt; he'd carved a few toy animals in the past few days and it seemed an opportune time to distract Frodo. He scowled when he realized he had neither belt nor bag. He heard Frodo begin to howl as he stalked back toward the bedroom.

When he returned, Frodo was still whimpering in spite of Dwalin's soothing rocking, and Bilbo hovered looking lost. He seemed to have forgotten his quarrel with Dwalin, which was one less worry at least.

Bofur gently chucked the child under his chin to get his attention, then made a tiny wooden sheep appear as if by magic from Dwalin's ear. Frodo stared at him, considering whether it was worth the effort to become interested. Bofur made the sheep disappear by slight of hand, then made it reappear from his own ear.

A brilliant smile appeared on Frodo's face, and he reached for the toy. By the time he was calm and fed and chewing contentedly on the sheep's head, all three of the adults were feeling easier.

"If you'd like, you can stay here while I go to Ered Luin," Dwalin said quietly when Bofur mentioned needing to get on the road.

Bofur had just hoped to avoid another night sharing a bed with Dwalin, but the relief at the suggestion took his breath away. Curiously, the relief had little to do with Dwalin; Bofur had been dreading Ered Luin ever since he realized that their journey didn't end at Rivendell. So many memories, so much of his life spent there – but Bofur had burned his bridges when Thorin offered a chance of escape. It had been a suicide mission for the king of a land he'd never seen, and he'd embraced it gladly. He'd never thought to return.

Bofur knew he was a coward. He didn't even mind, most of the time. He could quite comfortably have avoided even thinking of Ered Luin for the rest of his days.

"I couldn't impose on the kindness of our good burglar," he said when he realized that the silence had gone on for too long.

"No imposition at all, truly," Bilbo said, earnest.

Bofur smiled at the worried look on the Halfling's face. He wanted very much to say yes. But he glanced over at Dwalin, who was studiously not looking at him.

He didn't want to go to Ered Luin, but after this morning their friendship was a precarious thing. If Bofur chose to hide here in the Shire, the month or two Dwalin was away would harden the cracks into real fissures. He wasn't quite sure what they could salvage of whatever this was between them – or even whether he wanted to – but he wasn't quite willing to give up, not yet.

Bofur sighed. He should have known fate would catch up with him eventually. Since the day Thorin had asked him to join the company, Bofur had led a charmed life. He should have known the past could not be so easily left behind.

He thought quickly. He could get through a month or two at Ered Luin, however bad it got. He'd survived there for years, after all. And if he did decide to patch things with Dwalin, if they even could – not much chance, but that ridiculous spark of hope just wouldn't quite die – the journey back wouldn't be terrible either. Four months at most before he was safe back in Erebor.

"No," he said, rising. "I will not disobey the word of the King."

The road from the Shire to the Grey Havens was well-maintained, probably by the Elves. The first day's travel was spent mostly in silence. Bofur knew that beneath the silence frustration was seething, and braced himself for an explosion that never came.

As they sat close to the fire in the evening, eating roasted rabbit, Bofur found his thoughts wandering to the topic he'd avoided thinking on all day long. He knew little of Dwalin's days of adventuring. He had assumed that somewhere along the line Dwalin had had bed partners even if he avoided it now. But the hesitancy in Dwalin's kiss forced him to reexamine his assumptions.

"Are you a virgin, then?" he asked abruptly, the first words they'd exchanged since they'd left the Shire. He hadn't thought about it before, but Dwalin must be.

But Dwalin shook his head. "I paid a Human woman once, to show me."

Bofur waited, but Dwalin seemed to think that was the end of it. "Did you enjoy it?" he asked finally.

Dwalin reached for more meat, seeming not to notice the scalding temperature. "Wasn't bad," he grunted. "Pleasant enough, I suppose."

Bofur told himself that the sinking feeling in his gut wasn't disappointment. To distract himself, he dug in his workbag for a knife and a bit of wood.

Dwalin watched him as the piece of wood slowly became a frog. "That's not the knife you usually use for carving," he said when Bofur took out a polishing cloth.

"I left my tools at home." He'd not had time or reason for toymaking in Erebor, and hadn't thought it worth it to bring his tools on the journey. He held the knife out to Dwalin. "Elrond lent me the use of his forge." He remembered that Dwalin had fashioned most of his own weapons and added, "I've not been near a forge since my Da died, mind."

Dwalin inspected the blade with a professional's eye. "Not bad work for an amateur. Though the metal's been overworked; it will be brittle."

"Yes," Bofur said calmly. "I was very angry with you."

He couldn't tell in the darkness, but he suspected that Dwalin flushed. Bofur offered up the other knife, the one he'd made first. "That one I made when I was merely worried about you," he said. "It hasn't the proper balance for carving, though."

Dwalin weighed the second knife in his hand. "Maybe not for carving…" he muttered. With a sinuous flick of his wrist, he threw. Fifteen feet away, the knife quivered, buried in a tree trunk.

Dwalin hauled himself to his feet to fetch it back. He offered it back to Bofur with the words, "Should you tire of mining, you've some talent for metalcraft."

Bofur wasn't sure he'd ever heard Dwalin offer a compliment before. To anyone. No, that wasn't quite true: he would praise Kili and Fili when they were especially deserving.

"You needn't look at me like I'm a snake about to bite," Dwalin grumbled. "Your da was a good craftsman, and you've inherited the talent."

Bofur raised an eyebrow. He waited. By now, he could tell when Dwalin needed space and time to work out his next words.

"I'm sorry for being so stubborn in Rivendell," Dwalin said finally. "I'm sorry for everything that happened in Rivendell, except –" and he touched his chest. "I hope the price of this was not our friendship."

Bofur opened his mouth to instinctively deflect, to assure Dwalin it was all right – but he closed it. Enough lies had already been told.

Neither of them slept well that night, bedded down on opposite sides of the fire as if they needed the buffer between them.

In the morning, Bofur gave himself a good talking to. He was not, by nature, a somber dwarf; give him a silence and he would fill it with laughter and song. His cheerfulness put him at ease and it put others at ease, smoothing over ruffled feathers and injured feelings. It was a testament to how much his life had changed over the previous three years that this was the first time since they'd set out to retake the Mountain that Bofur had needed to consciously focus to be merry.

There was a duty to the King to be done, he told himself, and no one to blame but himself for that. Dwalin had apologized twice, which had to be some kind of miracle, and Bofur really couldn't ask for more than that. He needed to stop wallowing and see what could be salvaged of his friendship.

He knew how to do this; he'd learned from a lifetime of needing to forget. He closed his eyes and pictured the scarlet scarf his mum used to wear. Bofur spread it out in the floor of his mind, and put the memory of Dwalin's kiss in the exact center. Next to it, he placed the memory of the helplessness of being shaken so hard his head snapped back and his teeth rattled. He rolled the scarf up and tied it in a knot, and tucked the bundle safely away in the back of his mind.

Things would be awkward for a while yet, but Bofur knew that if he acted as if things were all right, most of the time people decided he must be correct. Dwalin might balk, but Bofur didn't think he would.

Feeling immensely better, he reached for his flute.

Predictably, Dwalin was wary of the return of smiles and story-telling. Bofur eased him into it as best he could, and after several days Dwalin seemed willing to follow his lead.

They avoided the Havens and travelled north, crossing the River Lhûn on the third day. As things got more comfortable with Dwalin and that anxiety eased, another took its place. With every mile that brought them closer to Ered Luin, the knot of dread in Bofur's stomach grew. It was almost a relief to reach the first village on the outskirts of the settlement; at least the anticipation was done with.

Ered Luin spanned an entire mountain range, and comprised some seven thousand dwarves. Most were clustered in the dwarf city, also called Ered Luin, nearest the principal mines. Bofur had been born here, had lived a hundred and forty years here. He would give a lot not to be coming back.